Monday, February 28, 2011

This is a report by Hara Kyoko, a member of White Rock group, a peace group based in White Rock, BC, a beautiful coastal city near the US border, of our January 22 meeting on the current situation in Okinawa. Right is a photo, in which we are wearing a yellow strap that says "No Base Okinawa," donated by Ken Nakamura-Huber living in Okinawa.
ホワイトロックの会 １月の会の報告

★琉球新報に２月２２日報道されました。下記をどうぞ。Okinawan newspaper Ryukyu Shimpo reported the NO statement. See below.

Click on the document for a larger view. クリックすると大きく見られます。

The Network for Okinawa (NO) is a grassroots coalition of peace groups, environmental organizations, faith-based organizations, academia, and think tanks, which oppose additional military construction in Okinawa and support the democratic decisions of the people of Okinawa.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Rethinking the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Japanese and American Perspectives, co-authored by Kimura Akira and Peter Kuznick was published in November 2010 by Horitsu Bunkasha, Kyoto (木村朗・ピーターカズニック著[乗松聡子訳]『広島・長崎への原爆投下再考―日米の視点』法律文化社) to mark the 65th year of the atomic-bombing. Kimura, Professor of Peace Studies at Kagoshima University in the southernmost prefecture of Kyushu, is a regular speaker for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Study Tour, and Kuznick, Professor of History at American University (Washington, D.C.) has led this tour with Fujioka Atsushi, Professor of Economics at Ritsumeikan University since 1995, bringing US and Japanese students to the two cities attacked by atomic bombs in August 1945. Peace Philosophy Centre has collaborated with this tour since 2006, bringing Canadian students to this tour.

Kimura in this book debunks so-called "a-bomb myths," a prevailing view about the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in some regions of the world that it ended the war early and saved lives. However, mounting evidences indicate that the US (Harry Truman and his hardliner aides James Byrnes and Leslie Groves) even purposefully delayed the end of the war to gain time to drop the atomic bombs, by removing a clause in the Potsdam Declaration that hinted that US would allow Japan to keep the emperor, and by excluding Stalin from the Declaration - in order to experiment both an uranium bomb and a plutonium bomb before the Soviets entered the war. (See Kimura's lecture notes HERE.)

Kuznick, in his introductory chapter (with the original English version published here on this website with author's permission), reflects on the way scholarly and popular thinking have evolved over 65 years and assesses the significance of the fact that recent U.S. public opinion polls reveal growing American support for the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuznick offers two other major articles in this book. One, on Truman and atomic bombings, moves beyond the perspectives of the Japanese victims and the American perpetrators to show how the decision to drop atomic bombs in World War II opened the door to the potential annihilation not only of the entire human species, but of all life on our planet. The other essay looks at the life of Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets and weighs the meaning of his unwavering refusal to question either the moral or military justifications for his participation in the atomic bombings, as well as the reactions of the other crew members of the Enola Gay. The original English versions of these two articles are available in Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.

Here is Peter Kuznick's introductory chapter from the book (footnotes are ommitted in this on-line version).

Sixty-five Years and Counting: The Debate Goes On

Peter Kuznick

No topic sparks more controversy or arouses greater passion among American scholars and the public at large than the decision by President Harry Truman and his military and civilian advisors to drop two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. But, sadly, there is also no topic more shrouded in ignorance than this crucially important one. Surveys show that more than one-third of young Americans and young Japanese either cannot identify Hiroshima as the target of the first atomic bomb or don’t know that the United States was the nation that dropped it. They also indicate that, among those Americans who do know, the majority still believe that the bomb was justified because it avoided an invasion and saved hundreds of thousands of American lives. In this book, Professor Kimura and I challenge this and other myths as we try to pierce the veil of ignorance that still surrounds discussion of the most consequential event in human history.

Perhaps the United States is finally beginning to wake up to its culpability for the nuclear nightmare that begin on that fateful day in August 1945 and has haunted humankind ever since. To his credit, President Barack Obama has put nuclear abolition back on the international agenda after eight years of losing ground under George W. Bush. In his inspiring Prague speech of April 2009, Obama declared, “as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” Acknowledgement of America’s special responsibility is an important first step. As the American Catholic Bishops stated in their 1983 pastoral letter on nuclear weapons: “we must shape the climate of opinion which will make it possible for our country to express profound sorrow over the atomic bombing in 1945. Without that sorrow, there is no possibility of finding a way to repudiate future use of nuclear weapons." The attendance by more than 100 Hibakusha--living reminders of what two primitive atomic bombs could do to human beings--at the May 2010 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations drove home the urgency of Obama’s call to action. The tireless efforts of the Hibakusha, who have heroically transformed themselves from victims into the conscience of humanity, provides a constant reminder that the world cannot wait for another Hiroshima or Nagasaki or worse--maybe much, much worse—before it eradicates these evil weapons from our midst.

But a moral obtuseness still clouds the debate—an obtuseness that can be traced back to the ways in which the bombings were originally justified by some of their earliest defenders. Taking a cue from Truman, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and Manhattan Project Director Brigadier General Leslie Groves, these early defenders argued that the bomb brought a mercifully speedy end to a bloody and brutal war without a costly invasion. Although Truman and Groves initially said the bombings saved “thousands” of American lives, the number of projected dead climbed to Truman’s half million and beyond as more and more questions were raised about the justification for such devastating actions.

Although, in the immediate aftermath, 85 percent of the American public supported the atomic bombings and almost 23 percent were so filled with hatred of the Japanese that they wished that the United States had had time to pulverize Japan with additional atomic bombs, some Americans, like Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins, were horrified by what their government had done. Equally appalled, Albert Einstein astutely opined that the real target was the Soviet Union not Japan. Others immediately recognized that the most terrifying implications went beyond the unconscionable slaughter of over a hundred thousand Japanese civilians or the dangerous provocations toward the Soviet Union. Historian Paul Boyer described a “primal fear of extinction” that swept the United States. NBC radio commentator Cesar Saerchinger noted: “the atomic bomb is merely in its infancy. Indeed, mankind . . . has achieved the power to destroy himself.” One of the starkest assessments came from Major George Fielding Eliot, who wrote in the New York Herald-Tribune: “Mankind stands at the crossroads of destiny.” If humans fail to rise to the challenge, “this planet will vanish into darkness and roll on, a blackened cinder, through the limitless night of interstellar space.” Earlier pre-atomic warnings “were warnings of chaos and of terror, but they were not warnings of the end of the world, only of the end of a particular phase of civilization. They were warnings of a new Dark Age, out of which man might again have arisen after a few centuries of suffering. But the forces which man has now brought into play are forces which can be utterly destructive, so that no living thing may survive their loosing—if ever they are loosed in their ultimate power.”

Hence, the terms of the debate over the atomic bombings were established within days of the attacks as the three narratives—heroic, tragic, and apocalyptic—were clearly set before a frightened and confused public. It is stunning how closely the public debate has hewed to these formulations over the subsequent six and a half decades although the positions embraced have not always conformed to political views or attitudes about the legitimacy of future use of nuclear weapons. A writer in the National Review, America’s leading conservative magazine, even posited in 1959 that criticism of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “was becoming part of the national conservative creed.” The ironies and contradictions abound. The “official” defense of the bombings was published by Henry Stimson, a man who campaigned aggressively to change the surrender terms the U.S. was offering in hopes of avoiding using the bomb and was subsequently tormented over his responsibility for authorizing use of such a weapon and publishing such a disingenuous defense. On the other hand, six of the seven five star generals and admirals who won their fifth star during the war can subsequently be counted among the critics due to their statements that the bomb was either morally indefensible, militarily unnecessary, or both. Counted among them were Generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower. MacArthur went so far as to praise former President Herbert Hoover for his May 30, 1945 memo urging Truman to let the Japanese keep the Emperor. MacArthur wrote, “That the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt.” While that judgment seems rather premature for late May, there is certainly reason to believe that it might have worked a month or two later, especially if combined with word of imminent Soviet entry into the conflict and, perhaps, a warning about the Allies’ devastating new weapon. Eisenhower claimed to have expressed to Stimson his opposition to using “that awful thing” against an “already defeated” Japan. Dulles issued a statement on August 9 deploring the morality of using such a weapon and worrying about the example the U.S. was setting for other nations who would emulate it in the future. All three were passionate and vehement in their denunciations. Yet MacArthur called for use of atomic bombs during the Korean War. And Eisenhower said the U.S. should use nuclear weapons in Korea like it used a bullet and Dulles offered atomic bombs to the French in Vietnam at Dienbienphu in 1954. Together, Eisenhower and Dulles oversaw an increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal from 1750 nuclear weapons when they took office in January 1953 to 23,000 when Eisenhower left in 1961. The Eisenhower-approved Pentagon war plan called for killing, deliberately and inadvertently, up to 650 million people in the event of all-out war with the Soviet Union, a possibility that seemed far from remote during the Eisenhower presidency.

The scholarly debate has developed along similar lines. Gar Alperovitz posed the biggest challenge to historical orthodoxy with his 1965 book Atomic Diplomacy, which argued that the bombs were not needed to end the war and that their real target was Moscow, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Alperovitz refined and further substantiated this thesis in his magisterial 1995 book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. Here he argues that the combination of changing the surrender terms and the Soviet invasion would have ended the war without the atomic bombings and that Truman and his advisors were aware of this. They deliberately delayed clarifying the surrender terms until after the bombs were dropped in hopes that the bombs would enable them to limit Soviet gains in both Europe and Asia. Other scholars, including Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird, also believe the bombings were indefensible but present a more complex view of U.S. decisionmakers’ motives.

This tragic narrative, as John Dower labeled it, emphasized both the indefensibility of the bombings and the suffering of the victims. Though it is supported by both sound logic and extensive documentation, it has been challenged on several grounds by scholars who persist in the belief that the bombings were necessary to end the war. Such scholars, including Robert Newman and Robert Maddox, insist that the Japanese, far from surrendering in early August 1945, were busy shoring up their forces in Kyushu to resist the anticipated Allied invasion. Privileging military cables over diplomatic ones, they cling to the notion that, without the atomic bombs, the Allies would have launched their invasion and suffered catastrophic casualties. In their minds, potential American deaths from an invasion not even scheduled to begin for another three months should take precedence over actual Japanese deaths in indiscriminate atomic attacks that deliberately targeted overwhelmingly civilian populations. Although scholars, such as John Ray Skates, have effectively challenged the rationale for an invasion , and others, such as Barton Bernstein and J. Samuel Walker, have refuted the bloated casualty projections, a handful of influential academic and military historians hold strong to such views. And the American public still adheres to the belief that such an invasion was inevitable. According to an August 2009 poll of 2,400 American voters, 61 percent said the U.S. did the “right thing” in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki and only 22 percent thought it “wrong.” Sixteen percent were undecided. These figures actually show stronger support for the bombings than was evident in previous polls in recent years. Perhaps this reflects a new strategy among the bomb defenders, who have tried to increasingly cast the bomb as a humanitarian gesture on Truman’s part. They have done this by not only emphasizing the numbers of Japanese who would have lost their lives in resisting an invasion, but by emphasizing the death rates among other Asians being subjugated under Japanese rule. Based on this, they argue that the lives saved by expediting the end of the war without an invasion far outweigh those killed in the atomic bombings. This is an extreme and particularly specious case of historical hindsight because there is no evidence that such considerations influenced the thinking of American policymakers in 1945 when the decision was being made.

Two other recent books have sharpened the debate. In 1999, Richard Frank published Downfall, which offers the most informed and reasoned effort to defend the bombs’ use. Frank goes beyond previous scholars in making extensive use of Japanese archives. Like others who embrace the heroic narrative, Frank believes the bombs’ use was the quickest way to end the war but acknowledges that the Japanese would not have been able to hold out much longer given the collapse of their rail system and the hunger and deprivation that was already undermining both morale and the war effort. The most significant recent work on the subject is Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s 2005 work Racing the Enemy. Hasegawa goes Frank one better, drawing upon U.S., Japanese, and Soviet archives to show that the Soviet entry into the war in the early morning of August 9, not America’s use of the atomic bombs, spurred the Japanese decision to surrender. Soviet entry proved the bankruptcy of both Japan’s diplomatic strategy, based upon seeking Soviet mediation to secure better surrender terms, and its Ketsu-go military strategy, based upon inflicting very heavy casualties upon the invading Allied forces. Ultimately helpless in the face of the rampaging Red Army, Japanese leaders decided to surrender to the U.S. while they still had the chance rather than risk a major Soviet role in the occupation, which would further diminish the chance of retaining the Emperor while it would increase the chance of socialist transformation inside Japan. This is not to ignore the impact of the atomic bombings on Japanese leaders. But U.S. firebombing of over 100 Japanese cities between March and August had already demonstrated U.S. ability to extirpate urban populations. The difference between doing this with one plane and one bomb or hundreds of planes and thousands of bombs was less monumental to Japanese leaders than many Americans realize.

What was really new, as I argue in this book, was the fact that the human species was now, for the first time, forced to reckon with its own annihilation and that of all other living things on this planet. And what I find most appalling, beyond the senseless deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings, is that Truman and his advisors knew enough about the prospects for inducing Japanese surrender without the bombs and understood full well that, by using the bombs, they were opening the door to what Truman called “the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley era after Noah and his fabulous ark,” and still opted for the nuclear option. As the following pages attempt to show, it is this willingness to use the weapons at hand and the reckless disregard of long-term consequences that makes the elimination of all nuclear weapons more urgent than ever.

Peter Kuznick is Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington, DC. He was born in New York City in July 1948 and received his Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees from Rutgers University. His doctorate was earned in History, in 1984, and he began his work at American University in 1986. He is the author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America and co-author of Rethinking Cold War Culture. He is currently writing a 10-part documentary film series with Oliver Stone with tentative title "The Secret History of the United States" that will air in the fall of 2011. He and Oliver Stone are also co-authoring a book by that title. He has led the Nuclear Studies Institute's tour to Hiroshima and Nagasaki since 1995.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

An Okinawan author Shimoji Yoshio refutes Sen. Inouye who urged early resolution of Futenma "relocation" issue, citing the ongoing struggle at another location in Okinawa - Takae, in the Yanbaru Forest. Since the end of 2010, Japanese Ministry of Defense has been forcefully proceeding with construction work for building six Osprey-capable helipads for the US Marine Corp jungle training center. The planned sites surround the neighbourhood of Takae and residents and supporters have been sitting-in to protest since 2007. Yesterday (February 16) a woman was injured during the struggle, but the Defense Ministry still continues their coercive construction work. We must stop this construction that will destroy the residents' life with noise and high risk of accidents, and will further destroy the rich Yanbaru forests, habitat for many rare and endangered species. PP

Yanbaru Forest in Northern Okinawa, where US and Japan are attempting to build Osprey helipads surrounding a residential neighbourhood. Photo by Shimoji Yoshio

Takae's helipad issue – criticizing Sen. Inouye

Futenma is not the only base issue anguishing Okinawa these days. There's a village called Takae in northern Okinawa and the problem facing Takae is that, in return for an unused portion of the U.S. Marine Corps Northern Training Area, Tokyo agreed with Washington to construct six helipads (diameter: 75 meters each) for the U.S. Marines' V-22 Ospreys in the lush forests surrounding the village.

The helipad construction is apparently interconnected with the planned relocation of the Futenma air station to Henoko, located also in northern Okinawa. The noise pollution caused by the Ospreys is said to be beyond human forbearance as the storm of protest showed lodged against the Marines on January 27 by the citizens of Brewton, Alabama, for the maneuvering of the Ospreys at the city’s airport.

Takae sits amidst lush forests and natural beauty. Imagine how horrible its beautiful landscape would become if the construction actually started. The training and the deafening noise of the infamous Ospreys would certainly destroy the peaceful environment for not only the Takae villagers but also those precious species, some already listed as endangered, that are indigenous to Yanbaru (or Northern Okinawa Highland).

According to the February 12 Japan Times, Senator Daniel Inouye again urged Tokyo to make headway for the early relocation of Futenma, saying “the U.S. side has been patient, although it cannot wait indefinitely.” This is a gangster’s typical pet line when he intimidates others – that is, Senator Inouye is threatening Tokyo to expedite Washington’s decades-old design of Futenma’s relocation to Henoko.

He may not know, but the Marines or the U.S. Navy representing them submitted to U.S. Congress every fiscal year in the 1960’s a blue print for the relocation of Futenma to Henoko for a budgetary approval, which was never approved because of sky-rocketing Vietnam War expenditures. How dare he say “the U.S. side cannot wait indefinitely”? That’s a laughing matter, indeed.

Yoshio Shimoji

Naha, Okinawa

Japan

Here is the Japan Times article on February 12 that Shimoji is responding to.

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) A leading U.S. senator said Thursday he hopes the issue of relocating a key U.S. Marine base in Okinawa will be resolved when Prime Minister Naoto Kan visits the United States for talks with President Barack Obama later this year.

A series of meetings between U.S. and Japanese security experts will hopefully "accommodate the summit where decisions would be made on the resolution of the so-called Futenma problem," Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat, said in Washington.

"I feel confident that it will result in the summit sometime this summer and the Futenma matter will be resolved," Inouye added.

Japan and the United States have agreed to transfer U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a residential area to a less densely populated coastal area farther north on Okinawa Island, but the plan has been stymied by local opposition. The Okinawa governor is seeking to move the base out of the prefecture.

Touching on the burdens that hosting U.S. bases in Okinawa, Inouye said, "We can't ignore the concerns of the people of Japan." But he added the U.S. side has been patient, although it cannot wait indefinitely.

If one reads between the lines of this article, "U.S. says Article 9 limits close defense cooperation," it is easy to see that the U.S. and possibly Japan are preparing to go to war against North Korea. If one studies how wars have begun for more than 100 years one can see a pattern of propaganda and media reporting that portrays the enemy (in this case North Korea) as a diabolical threat that "must be stopped." The language is soft to show how the U.S. and Japan are building a war machine, a coalition rather than each country independently defending their own territory. "Defense cooperation," "alliance," "integration" of missile defense operations all set to psychologically prepare the Japanese people to accept a revision of the Japanese Constitution. Historians may take note that the U.S. has been pressuring Japan to drop Article 9 since 1950 when the U.S. wanted Japan to take up arms with them in the Korean war. To their credit the Japanese government said, "No," and has not participated in war-making for 65 years. No war necessary for Japan to become an economic giant. No soldiers or civilians lost to war in 65 years. Now both Japan and the U.S. are wheeling and dealing to drop Article 9 and worse, to drop the 3 nuclear non-proliferation principles (which both sides have been secretly planning since 1960). It is sad, it is regrettable, it is a crime against humanity, but it is not the last word. The Japanese people are resilient, creative and possess the power to demand the constitutional guarantee of their own independence and continued adherence to Article 9 and the 3 nuclear non-proliferation principles.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Two congressmen spoke of their opinion that the US troops should withdraw from Japan, from different perspectives. It is good to know that Ron Paul has that imagination of foreign troops in the backyard of US citizens.

Two veteran U.S. congressmen have called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Japan amid the ballooning U.S. budget deficit.

‘‘It’s becoming a financial issue,’’ Ron Paul, a Republican House of Representatives member from Texas, said in a recent interview with Kyodo News, indicating that maintaining U.S. forces in Japan has become a financial burden for Washington.

﻿﻿

Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat member from Ohio, said in a separate interview, ‘‘The United States truly cannot afford to construct the new base in Okinawa. Nor can it afford to have a military presence across the globe.’‘

Kucinich and Paul are heavyweights in the House, and both have experience of seeking the presidency. Paul, an advocate of isolationism, is supported by conservatives, while Kucinich is popular as one of the most liberal figures among the Democrats.

Last week, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff unveiled their latest National Military Strategy report pledging to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in northeast Asia for decades.

Some members of Congress say it is important for the United States to keep forces in Japan as China’s military presence is growing in the region while North Korea continues to act provocatively.

The two lawmakers, however, are opposed to continued stationing of U.S. forces in Japan.

﻿﻿

‘‘China’s interested in making money, not war,’’ Kucinich said.

Paul argued Tokyo should end its dependence on U.S. forces for its defense, saying, ‘‘It’s time for Japan to assume all of their own responsibilities.’‘

He also dismissed the view that U.S. forces in Japan serve as deterrence, saying this is an ‘‘excuse’’ to maintain a U.S. military presence in the region.

‘‘For a long time I was probably the only one’’ who proposed such a view, he said, adding, ‘‘Now we’re getting more support.’‘

Kucinich is also critical of the current U.S. military strategy. ‘‘We don’t have the money to be the policemen of the world. And we should stop pretending that we do,’’ he said.

Describing the U.S. military bases in Japan as ‘‘really part of a bygone era,’’ Kucinich urged the two countries to move away from a relationship prioritizing military cooperation.

﻿﻿

‘‘We have a strong friendship with Japan. That friendship is not dependent on a military presence,’’ he said.

Both Paul and Kucinich said they can understand the feeling of local people in Okinawa Prefecture where a host of U.S. bases are located. Local opposition remains strong against a plan to relocate a U.S. base within the prefecture.

‘‘What if China wanted a base in New York City? We’d be furious,’’ Paul said.
﻿﻿
The problem in Okinawa is not U.S. Marine troops but ‘‘the people in Washington that send them there,’’ Kucinich said, adding, ‘‘This is an issue that Congress must take up with the White House so that we can make sure that the concerns of the residents of Okinawa are taken into consideration.’’

Former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio's interview with Kyodo News, Okinawa Taimusu and Ryukyu Shimpo revealed some answers to unanswered questions, particularly what Hatoyama meant by "deterrence" when he stressed the importance of the US Marines in Okinawa. He gave up the his election pledge of moving Futenma Air Station outside of Okinawa, instead of building a "replacement" base within the island already cluttered with US military bases, mere legacy of WWII and Cold War.

The answer was that he only used the word "deterrence" to justify the Henoko plan when he thought there was no other option available. It was purely an excuse; nothing substantial.

Q: What did you have in mind when you called for Futenma to be relocated “at least out-of-Okinawa [elsewhere in Japan](kengai)” during the 2009 election?

Hatoyama: "In view of the reality of the excessive burden of the bases on Okinawa and in order to alleviate the suffering of the Okinawan people, the DPJ as a party had decided in its "Okinawa Vision” on “at least out-of-Okinawa”. It was not just Hatoyama bringing it up on his own initiative, but I raised the party’s core thinking with great expectations. It was not so much that I had a clear view of how to proceed, but I said that out of my sense of responsibility something had to be done.

Q. Why did the idea not prevail within the cabinet and within the party after you became Prime Minister?

Hatoyama: Amidst the difficulties following assumption of power, many realized it would not be easy and gave up. There was an overwhelming atmosphere within the government that it would be difficult to relocate Futenma outside of the prefecture, let alone outside Japan, based on the thinking within Defence and Foreign Affairs, and on the accumulation of events, and that atmosphere still remains. Such thinking prevailed within the Cabinet, with only myself and a few others wanting to move the base outside of Okinawa.

Q. Did you expect this to be a big issue?

Hatoyama: I was not expecting that it would be such a big matter as to become the reason for my resignation as Prime Minister.

Q. Why did you put a seal on the idea of a US-Japan security treaty without permanent [US] troop presence?

Hatoyama: I still have that belief. I used to call for it in the old DPJ, but unfortunately, once the DPJ took office, it was not able to win support. On the Futenma problem too, even though I did not use the actual expression “without permanent bases,” I wanted to lead things in that direction, so I often spoke of “outside Japan, or at least outside Okinawa.”

Q. Statements by your Cabinet ministers were all inconsistent.

Hatoyama: Although Okada (Katsuya), then Foreign Minister, said that we had not actually written “Futenma outside of Okinawa” in the party’s manifesto, I thought that, since we constituted the core of government and enjoyed overwhelming popular support, we should clearly articulate and implement the party’s vision. I wanted Okada to act on that vision.

Q. Why did you not form the Cabinet in such a way as to be able to realize your vision of a security Treaty "without permanent bases"? Why did you choose Kitazawa (Toshimi) as Defense Minister?

Hatoyama: Kitazawa was Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense, and was supposed to have a stable vision for defense-related matters. Rather than appointing ministers on specific themes, we had lists of candidates, and placed the most suitable person in each position. Defense Minister Kitazawa’s challenge was how to transcend the Defense Ministry’s ways of thinking and to propose new ways of thinking. He should have put more effort into it.

Q. Was it the case that the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence had cultures resistant to new thinking?

Hatoyama: Yes, such a culture was very strong. It seemed as if my ideas were scornfully dismissed. MOFA and MOD, while they should have been thinking through the base transfer issue with me, instead chose to give priority to what had been agreed with the US (a new base in Okinawa). Once, after summoning two senior members of these ministries to my residence and telling them that we would constitute a team to deal with this, stressing the importance of confidentiality, the matter was reported in the following day’s papers. I was greatly saddened. I did not know whom to trust. After much effort during the LDP time, the MOFA and MOD had come to a single solution – transfer within Okinawa, and saw no alternative. A determination to push things gradually in such a direction seemed to be at work. In dealing with the Americans, there was nothing for it but to trust them. When we reached the point where anything else was futile, I could go no further and I came to doubt my own strength.

Q. Did you have any allies?

Hatoyama: Then Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano was cooperative in exploring possibilities of Tokunoshima Island.11 I had at least one ally.

Q. Did you not consider appointing a secret mission to negotiate with the US on your behalf?

Hatoyama: Yes, and I almost had somebody for that purpose, but things were difficult.

Q. It sounded like something out of the blue when you came up with "deterrence" as a reason to build a replacement base in Okinawa.

Hatoyama: When Tokunoshima Island (in Kagoshima Prefecture) refused to host an alternative facility, we had no choice but to move it to Henoko, so I had to come up with a rationale to justify it. I didn't think the presence of Marines in Okinawa would work directly as deterrence against war, but without the Marines, the US military would not be able to function fully in terms of interoperability, and that would affect deterrence. As for the deterrent effect of the Marines themselves, you all think they are not a deterrent, and that is also my understanding. If you say it was a pretext, then it was a pretext. But I thought I could still use the word “deterrence” in a broader sense.

Q. Your statement during the meeting with President Obama drew much attention.12

Hatoyama: I said, "Trust me," because I believed that I would be able to work out a plan agreeable both to Okinawans and the US. I used those words, meaning to ask President Obama to trust me as a person. Last July (2010), I received a hand-written letter from President Obama that said, "You were faithful to your words." According to the media, I damaged US-Japan relations, but that is not true, at least it was not true as of July last year. I feel sorry that the current plan is not something that Okinawan people can understand. It is true that trust between the Japanese government and Okinawa was severely damaged, and for that I am really sorry. I regret it very much.

Q. At the end of 2009, had you not already given up on the idea of moving Futenma out of Okinawa?

Hatoyama: Even when I used the words “trust me,” the prospect of moving Futenma to another part of Japan was grim. Already then the understanding had been reached along the lines eventually announced on 28 May. I would be lying if I said that at that time (the end of 2009) I did not think about asking Okinawans to accept the plan to build a replacement base in Henoko as the inevitable option. However, while consulting with Okinawa Governor Nakaima (Hirokazu), I chose to delay the ultimate decision until May 2010, thinking that this plan would betray the Okinawan people and would not survive politically.

Q. Why May 2010?

Hatoyama: With the US expectation to settle the issue by the end of 2009, I could not postpone things for a whole year; the maximum would have been half a year. The budget bill would tie us up until March, and there was the circumstance involving SDP (Social Democratic Party).13 Having Futenma relocation as an election issue would have made it impossible to contest the Upper House election. I wanted to go to the US to negotiate directly (with President. Obama) in early May, but we (as a government) did not yet have a coherent alternative plan.

Q. Did the sinking of the South Korean warship (Cheonan) affect the decision (to go back to the Henoko plan)?

Hatoyama: The threat of North Korea was real to me then. It was an act of war in a way. That incident certainly worked as a lever to move the whole plan back to Henoko.

Q. What did you mean when you told us you had a “plan in mind”?14

Hatoyama: I used that phrase because I wanted to find a place for Futenma relocation on Tokunoshima Island. The US military eventually replied that part of the Marines’ training could be transferred to Tokunoshima, so the idea of “Tokunoshima” is preserved in the Japan-US agreement (of May 28).

Q. When did you make the final decision to go back to the Henoko plan?

Hatoyama: It was when I gave up on Tokunoshima. On April 28, I met with Tokuda Torao, former Diet member (from Tokunoshima) but I could not gain his support. The possibility of Tokunoshima was completely blocked from that point. I thought I would be able to solve the problem if Okinawa, together with the Japanese and US governments, were to form a consultative council and create a platform to discuss the government’s ideas. But when I met Governor Nakaima for the second time in May, he told me that he would not able to do it before the gubernatorial election (in November 2010). I gave up then, thinking there was no way to attain Okinawan understanding.

Q. What is your suggestion for future negotiations?

Hatoyama: Any replacement base should not be made permanent. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirano and I had come to an understanding that we must not let the US military use this facility in perpetuity. Okinawa does not consent. In order to gain their understanding, there has to be some way to negotiate, for example to make this base temporary, even if such a condition was not included in the Japan-US agreement. Even if a relocation site was to be a certain distance away from Okinawa, so long as it is part of a single package (with the US military), it would work as a “deterrent.”

Q. What is your overall reflection?

Hatoyama: Our counterpart should have been the US, not Okinawa. I should have gone there first. I should have been more assertive, presenting my plan as the only possible plan. Mr. Obama himself was probably surrounded by voices that told him the only option was to hew to the status quo (the existing US/Japan agreement). Both Japan and the US lacked political leadership on this issue.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

This post introduces two recent news from the US on V-22 Osprey in Japanese: one over the Air Force generals' disagreements over the cause of the combat crash in Afghanistan last April; and the over on the Center for American Progress recommendation to cancel the Osprey program, due to cost and technical unreliability. See the links and text of the news in English below.

The V-22 Osprey helicopter has been long hampered by cost overruns and technical problems. Opposition to the program is bipartisan: the co-chairs of President Obama’s 2010 deficit commission recommended ending procurement of the V-22; during his stint as secretary of defense, Dick Cheney attempted to cancel the program four times, calling it a “turkey.” Like the EFV, technical problems have seriously impaired the Osprey’s performance. A May 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that “in Iraq, the V-22’s mission capability (MC) and full mission capability (FMC) rates fell significantly below… rates achieved by legacy helicopters.” Given the V-22’s high price tag—it costs five times as much as other models—and lackluster performance, there is no reason for DOD to continue sinking money into this turkey. Terminating the program would save $10-12 billion in the next decade.

In a rare public display of disunity, two generals are at serious odds over the cause of a fatal aircraft accident.

The April 9 crash in Afghanistan was the first loss of a CV-22 Osprey in combat. Two of the three cockpit crew members — pilot Maj. Randell Voas, 43, and flight engineer Senior Master Sgt. James Lackey, 45 — died attempting a night landing at a desert landing zone. The co-pilot survived; he has not been indentified. Also killed were a soldier and a contractor — two of 16 passengers in the cargo compartment.

Brig. Gen. Donald Harvel, president of the accident investigation board, said he believes engine problems brought down the special operations Osprey on its landing approach. Lt. Gen. Kurt Cichowski, to whom Harvel answered during the investigation, argues aircrew errors caused the crash.

Harvel cited engine problems in his report; Cichowski wrote a dissent that he released with the report Dec. 15.

Cichowski, a fighter pilot, declined to comment on the dispute. He is now the CIA’s associate director for military affairs; Harvel, a mobility pilot, spoke with Air Force Times over the telephone Dec. 28 and Jan. 5 from his home near Atlanta. He retired in September from the Air National Guard and now works for Delta Air Lines.

“There was absolutely a lot of pressure to change my report,” Harvel said. “My heart and brain said it was not pilot error. I stuck with what I thought was the truth.”

Harvel said Air Force Special Operations Command wanted him to cite the cause of the crash as pilot error because AFSOC didn’t want old doubts stirred up about the safety of the Osprey program, which had three fatal crashes of prototypes and the Marine Corps variant from 1992 to 2000. The Air Force variant has had one other serious accident, caused when an engine bolt vibrated loose during takeoff. The CV-22, though, managed to land safely.

AFSOC declined to comment on Harvel’s accusation. At the time of the April 9 crash and during the investigation, Cichowski was AFSOC’s vice commander.

The dispute will never be resolved because no irrefutable evidence exists to substantiate either explanation: no black box and no eyewitness testimony.

The CV-22’s flight data recorder probably ended up in little pieces when the service destroyed the Osprey hours after the crash. The airmen and soldiers stripping the wreckage of evidence and classified items before the explosion didn’t know the aircraft had a black box, according to the report.

As for firsthand knowledge of what went on inside the cockpit, the surviving co-pilot told investigators he didn’t have a clear memory of the flight’s last 30 seconds.

Harvel came to his conclusion from watching a video of the CV-22 from a camera onboard an A-10 Thunderbolt that was part of the mission. The footage shows haze coming out of both engines throughout the last 17 seconds of flight; Harvel is convinced the “unidentified contrails,” as they are described in the report, are fuel vapors from engines trying to restart. The Air Force did not release the images.

The stresses of flying in the dirt and dust of Afghanistan probably caused the engine problems, Harvel said.

When maintainers checked the power level of the engines April 6, the right one operated at 95.3 percent and left one ran at 99.5 percent. When an engine fell below 95 percent, it had to be repaired or replaced.

After the power check, the Osprey made four more landings at austere sites. On one, the screening system that protected the left engine from blowing sand failed. Each landing would have reduced engine performance, Harvel said.

“Degraded engines could have led to engine failure, surge/stall or insufficient power when a high power demand was required,” he said, adding that he believes the aircrew members knew about the engine problems and flew the Osprey as best they could to a rolling landing. The CV-22 touched down at 88 mph, the report said; it should have landed like a helicopter, with little forward speed.

The plane’s landing gear absorbed some of the impact, with the tires digging eight inches into the desert sand. The plane rolled and bounced for more than 200 feet until it reached a drainage ditch. As the plane’s nose dipped into the ditch, the Osprey flipped over and began breaking apart before coming to a stop 50 feet away.

In his dissent, Cichowski cited several factors ruling out engine failure:

•No one onboard the Osprey or in radio contact with it heard any discussions about engine problems or warnings from the cockpit.

•An analysis of the recovered left engine showed it was working. The right engine was not recovered.

•The crew made several errors, including the pilot flying too high and too fast in his approach; the failure to obtain a weather report warning of a 17 mph tailwind; distraction over unexpected lighting at the landing zone; and self-imposed pressure to make the mission a success.

Typically, the senior officer who convenes the accident investigation board — Cichowski in this case — agrees with the board president’s opinion.

If the senior officer disagrees with the report, he can ask the board president to consider new evidence. Usually the review resolves the differences.

Cichowski received Harvel’s report Aug. 25. On Sept. 30, Cichowski received an analysis from the joint V-22 Program Office that suggested the report underestimated the CV-22’s speed when it crashed.

In a memo dated Oct. 5, Cichowski stated he accepted the report but believed there wasn’t enough evidence to support the conclusion that at least one engine malfunctioned.

Next, the report and Cichowski’s dissent went to Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, who in the early 1980s served as an MC-130E Combat Talon pilot in the same squadron as the Osprey crew — the 8th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla.

On Nov. 15, Schwartz ordered Harvel to review the program office analysis. Harvel spent three days, Nov. 19 to Nov. 21, studying the new information but still came away convinced that engine problems caused the crash.

Despite his strong disagreement with Harvel’s conclusion, Cichowski signed off on the report Nov. 23 because Air Force accident investigation rules left him little choice.

With the investigation finally wrapped up, AFSOC leaders began meeting with families and survivors to explain the conclusions. Usually, the board president handles the duty, but Harvel was not invited.

Harvel was not asked to meet with the service members and families because he had retired, said AFSOC spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Villagran.

Harvel sees the exclusion as AFSOC’s snub of his opinion.

“I thought that they were very wrong not to let me brief the families,” he said. “I had gathered a lot of insight and took extra notes to brief personal stories to each family. I even volunteered to brief the families at no expense to the government. Still, they never even acknowledged me.”

A few hours later today, at a ceremony at the grand military strategy conference that takes place every year in Munich, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will exchange 'instruments of ratification' for the New START treaty.

The moment they do so, New START will enter into force, and there will once more be an arms control framework of sorts, as there was until December 2009. The occasion has already unleashed some commentary, with some suggesting that New START not only doesn't go nearly far enough but is not worth having at all because it does not 'really' reduce actual nuclear weapons numbers and because it is associated with a modernisation program that largely undercuts the very purpose of a nuclear arms control agreement. Others argue to the contrary that it undermines US (or Russian) security, or that it puts 'unacceptable' constrains on the US holy cow of missile defence. Alas! It does nothing of the kind - if only it did!

The facts are that as a disarmament treaty, New START is distinctly underwhelming. The reductions it mandates in 'deployed' nuclear warheads are of the order of 30% only, and some argue that Russia at least, would have found its forces shrinking BELOW the levels mandated by New START anyway, new START or no New START.

Hans Kristensen recently pointed out that New START does not actually mandate the destruction of a single nuclear warhead. All it talks about is reducing the numbers of OPERATIVE nuclear warheads, so to satisfy the treaty all that needs to happen is for warheads to be removed from that category and stored in bunkers.

And of course, the treaty manages to count nuclear bombers, which may carry up to 24 warheads as if they are a SINGLE warhead. This means that any number of warheads may be stored on bomber bases, and the number of warheads actually counted will never exceed the number of nuclear - capable bombers at the base.

However, it is fair to say that there is some consensus that we are better off with New START whatever its inadequacies, than we would be if the Congress and the Duma had rejected it. It would have been much better if the reductions were deeper and more real, if missile defence HAD been really constrained, if a path to zero were more clearly embraced, if warheads really did have to be actually destroyed, and above all if that bargain with the devil - the monster modernisation program - had not been associated with the treaty.

But the results of not proceeding with New START would have been in effect to abandon the entire progress however tentative, in the direction of nuclear abolition, that the world has time after time pledged itself to.

And there is now an increasing comment on 'what further progress can we make now?'.

That there can now be talk at all of 'what's next' is itself an indication of the benefits of having START enter into force. There mere fact that it has done so almost regardless of its content, makes talk of further progress possible.

However, neither the CTBT nor the FMCT look to me like terribly good candidates for further progress. The prospects for movement on either just don't look good enough.

An issue that has hung around in the background as it were, but is of utterly apocalyptic significance and that might have a chance of real forward movement is however, the issue of operational readiness.

The US and Russia STILL maintain over 2000 warheads each in a status in which they can be launched in less than two minutes. This number will decrease slightly under New START. Obama as a presidential candidate, pledged himself to negotiate with Russia to change this.

The Canberra Commission back in 1996, the Blix commission in 2006, an appeal by 44 nobels in 2004-5, and the Evans/Kawaguchi commission in 2009, all urged that nuclear weapons be taken off high alert.

A study done by Bruce Blair, Colonel Valery Yarynich, Generals Esin and Zolotarev, and others, published in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, concluded that nuclear weapons in the US and Russia could be de-alerted without the danger of a 're-alerting race' and with overall improvement in strategic stability.

And at the last session of the UN General Assembly, two resolutions specifically called for the reduction of nuclear weapons operating status, with the 'Operational Readiness' resolution sponsored by Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, and Switzerland being adopted 157-3. (Operational Readiness came about partly as a result of this authors work).

Minimal progress has been made on the US side so far, with the Nuclear Posture Review conceding that, yes, the US DOES maintain its strategic nuclear forces on high alert (after denials during the Bush administration that it even does so), and committing to examine ways in which 'presidential decision-making time' could be increased. Certainly, decision-making time (currently 8 minutes max to decide on retaliation) is the nub of the problem, but to increase decision making time is precisely to decrease the alert level of nuclear forces. You just can't do one without the other.

A number of NGOs and others have written to Sergei Lavrov, Hilary Clinton, and the relevant State Duma and Congressional committees, urging progress on this literally apocalyptic issue as a priority in the post START entry into force era. That letter will be dispatched in the coming week.

John Hallam, People for Nuclear Disarmament Nuclear Flashpoints Project, worked on nuclear fuel cycle/nuclear power issues with Friends of the Earth 1977-1999, in Melbourne 1977-84. Now with People for Nuclear Disarmament Nuclear Flashpoints Project in Sydney, Australia. He originated the texts of over 20 resolutions on nuclear disarmament in the Australian Senate from 1998-2008, plus resolutions on India-Pakistan nuclear testing in 1998 and 2003 in the UK and Brasilian parliaments. In 1999, he worked on a global campaign to lower the operating status of nuclear weapons over the Y2K rollover, resulting in resolutions in the Australian Senate, a unanimous resolution in the European Parliament, and a letter signed by over 600 NGOs and parliamentarians to presidents Yeltsin and Clinton. In 2004/5, together with Doug Mattern of the Association of World Citizens, he put together an apppeal on nuclear weapons operating status that was signed by 44 nobels and endorsed by the European Parliament and that led to the adoption of resolutions in the General Assembly in 2007 and 2008. John has written a number of widely supported letters signed by hundreds of organisations ans parliamentarians on nuclear weapons policy to the Indian government notably in 2003 when nuclear war was a real possibility. This letter resulted in media coverage and in an 'early day motion in the UK parliament calling for a peaceful resolution that became the most widely supported EDM ever. He was in panels at the UN in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, together with Steven Starr of PSR, with detailed papers on nuclear weapons operating status/operational readiness.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Takazane, giving keynote speech at the
memorial for Korean victims of Nagasaki
A-bombing, August 9, 2009

This is the prefatory article "Historical Understanding to Combat Nationalism," in the January 1, 2011 issue of Nishizaka Dayori, newsletter of Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum, by the museum's Director Takazane Yasunori. The article warns excessive nationalism in Japan, especially in its mass media, calls on them to deal with the territorial conflict over the southernwest islets called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, with historical understanding of Japan's past aggression against China. Oka Masaharu Museum helps visitors learn about Japan's acts of invasion and aggression during the war, such as forced labour, sex slavery, Nanjing Massacre, and Unit 731, and the struggles of Korean a-bomb victims.

For past articles in this blog about Takazane, Oka Masaharu Museum, and the annual memorial for Korean victims of Nagasaki atomic bomb, see this LINK.